Washington, DC – Congressman Adrian Smith (R-NE) issued the following statement today encouraging constituents to participate in United States Postal Service (USPS) surveys on reduced retail hours at certain post office locations:
“The Postal Service is considering changes to retail hours at 13,000 post offices nationwide, including many in Nebraska’s Third District. I encourage all residents who would be impacted by these changes to complete the USPS survey. Doing so allows the Postal Service to determine the best path forward for individuals and businesses in every community. Your input will be considered in the final decision. Nebraskans can contact my office if they have questions or concerns.”
USPS will conduct an evaluation process of the proposed reduced hours at 13,000 post office locations over the next two years. The evaluation will consist of a customer survey and a public meeting. Until these meetings are complete, no changes will be made. Surveys will be mailed to affected zip codes and available at post offices.
A complete list of Post Offices affected by the proposal is available at: http://about.usps.com/news/electronic-press-kits/our-future-network/welcome.htm.
The fact is that the Postal Service has already downgraded some offices without surveys or meetings (see reporting on http://www.savethepostoffice.com).
People should fill out the surveys even if the Postal Service has no intention of honoring community input. It appears that the Postal Service is making every attempt to suppress survey participation – surveys are mailed only to post office boxholders and not all those that use the office, in many offices surveys are not available at the window as specified, surveys do not come with return postage and it isn’t clear if they will counted if not stamped.
While completing the surveys may not make much difference at this point it is entirely possible that the Postal Service will use poor response rates to justify future attempts to close offices.